


beginning to end

by stargenes (orphan_account)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Flashbacks, Gen, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-13 05:23:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7964095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/stargenes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It ends like this: two old friends meet for the first time in years on opposite sides of the court. One is in teal, the other in maroon, and when they go to shake hands, they could not be farther apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	beginning to end

**Author's Note:**

> endless appreciation to both altimys and jesty for putting up with my procrastination and spotty activity. this story has been on my mind since march, and i couldn't be more grateful to have had the opportunity to work with you guys. thank you for betaing, jesty, and thank you for the absolutely beautiful art, altimys!!!
> 
> [this song captures the mood quite nicely](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL1ns-_Uw5M)

It ends like this: two old friends meet for the first time in years on opposite sides of the court. One is in teal, the other in maroon, and when they go to shake hands, they could not be farther apart.

“I’m expecting a good game, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says, all artificial, like they haven’t been avoiding each other ever since high school began. “Don’t let me down.”

His grip is like his smile, slippery and slick, as insincere as the rest of him; Iwaizumi is more than happy to let go of his hand. There are a number of things he could say in response to that statement, depending on whether he’s up to playing Oikawa’s game _(You know me better than that)_ or not _(You haven’t seen enough of me to make any assumptions)_ , but he settles for a happy medium.

“Have I ever?”

Oikawa tilts his head, smile still fixed firmly in place. It’s a false smile, but it’s a subtle fakeness, the kind you don’t recognize unless you know what to look for. In his lifetime, Iwaizumi has seen it directed toward others often enough to name it for what it is when it’s directed toward him.

“I don’t know,” says Oikawa, almost thoughtful as he considers Iwaizumi. “That’s for you to decide.”

_That doesn’t even make any sense,_ Iwaizumi wants to tell him. Oikawa’s always had this habit of saying things that mean other things, or things that don’t mean anything at all. It’s tempting to call him out on it, but the teams are lining up, Aobajousai on one end and Shiratorizawa on the other, and there simply isn’t time.

“Good luck,” he says instead as they part, gravitating toward their respective ends of the court, and Oikawa just laughs, shallower than ever.

“Thanks, Iwa-chan,” he says, “but we’re not the ones who need it.”

 

**3 YEARS AGO**

“Next year,” Oikawa says. "We'll beat them for sure next year." He has his plaque clutched to his chest, the Best Setter Award for Miyagi Prefecture, but his tears are for something else. 

It's the end of their last game at Kitagawa Daiichi and the end of their last game together, though the latter is something they have yet to learn. What Oikawa's upset about isn't the end of middle school or even the loss of the match — or rather, he is upset about losing, but it isn't _just_ the losing that he's upset about — it's that they came the closest they’ve ever come to winning against Shiratorizawa, and with nothing but a plaque to show for it. Oikawa, Iwaizumi knows, is after something more intangible than that.

"Next year," he agrees, rubbing the back of his hands over his own eyes because he's crying too, and then, because Oikawa's plaque is starting to get wet, “Hey, don’t cry on your award.” 

"I don't care about the award."

Iwaizumi raises an eyebrow. That's a lie, and they both know it. "Of course you do," he says. "You worked hard to deserve it."

Oikawa bites his lip and turns his gaze straight with his chin lifted, because looking up makes it easier to hold back tears and though they may not be the only team members crying, Oikawa's always been the best at pretending. Holding onto the illusion even after it’s faded.

"Thanks," he says, and he doesn't need to tell Iwaizumi all the things he's thanking him for — more than that last comment, more than being there all these years through thick and thin — because Iwaizumi already knows. 

 

They assume their positions on their respective ends of the court, Aobajousai opposite to Shiratorizawa, Iwaizumi opposite to Oikawa. Perhaps it ought to feel natural after so many years attending different schools, but it's the first time they've been set to play against each other, the first time they’ve even been in the same game since the Incident, and Iwaizumi can't quite get used to the sight of Oikawa's face through the holes in the net.

"Well, this is it," says Hanamaki, clapping a hand each on the backs of his two neighboring teammates— Iwaizumi and Matsukawa, by no mistake. "Either it ends here or it doesn't."

"What’s new? That’s how it is for every tournament," Matsukawa points out.

"Obviously," Hanamaki says, "but you forget that we're facing off against Iwaizumi's dear friend over there." He nods his head, unnecessarily, to where Oikawa is standing with the rest of Shiratorizawa.

Matsukawa catches on quickly to whatever Hanamaki is playing at. Iwaizumi considers his escape options.

“Oh, but of course,” he says, airy and grandiose, and Iwaizumi should really get away before it’s too late, “we can’t afford to let his pride suffer now, can we?”

Hanamaki shakes his head solemnly. "No, that wouldn't do," he says. “We have to _defend_ his honor.”

Matsukawa nods. "The captain's honor and the team's."

"What are you talking about?" Iwaizumi says irritably. "It's just another game."

"It's all right, Iwaizumi-san," Hanamaki says, moving his hand from Iwaizumi's back to the top of his head and patting him there. "You can count on us. We'll blow your friend's team out of the water, right, Mattsun?"

"Don't _Iwaizumi-san_ me." 

"We haven't spent three years listening to him rant about this Oikawa to not help him win," Matsukawa affirms.

"I haven’t been _ranting_ , you make me sound like I'm obsessed with the guy—"

"Quick," Hanamaki says, taking advantage of his hand’s placement to flick Iwaizumi on the head, "he's talking to the nemesis. You have to one-up him somehow."

Right now, Iwaizumi would consider the entirety of Shiratorizawa’s volleyball team to be the _nemesis_ , but the way Hanamaki says it gives the impression that he doesn’t mean the collective enemy. _Don’t look,_ he tells himself, because he’s better than that. He couldn’t care less about whom Oikawa fraternizes with, he’s so over it, he stopped caring ages ago, he swears.

He looks, anyway; he’s long since stopped trying to delude himself.

Oikawa’s conferring with Ushijima, nothing unusual in and of itself; they’re on the same damn team, it’s only to be expected. What makes Iwaizumi pause is the way they bend their heads together as they speak, like co-conspirators. He’s had three years to adjust to the idea of Oikawa-Ushijima camaraderie, but that doesn’t mean he’s had the chance to see it in real life, and when the last memories of the Oikawa-Iwaizumi friendship involve so much Shiratorizawa shit-talking, it’s hard not to be taken aback by the sight.

"I'm not _petty_. I don't need to one-up him on anything," Iwaizumi says, but it's too late because Hanamaki is already waving someone over from the sidelines.

"Kageyama-kun! Iwaizumi has something to tell you," he calls, even though Iwaizumi decidedly _doesn’t_ , and wisely elects to remove himself from Iwaizumi’s immediate vicinity, effectively placing Matsukawa as a barrier between them.

No matter. It’s not like Iwaizumi would’ve done anything, anyway; he has better things to spend his energy on than Hanamaki Takahiro.

The game will begin soon, but for now he turns his attention to dealing with Kageyama, who’s finished jogging over and appears to be awaiting instruction, wide-eyed, from his captain.

“Uh,” Iwaizumi says. He really doesn’t have anything in mind, and he shoots a glare in Hanamaki’s general direction for good measure. It’s intercepted by Matsukawa, who smiles apologetically even as a head of suspiciously pink-brown hair ducks out of sight behind his broad shoulders.

“Did you need me to go over anything?” Kageyama asks. “The plays? The signals? I have them all memorized. I rewatched Shiratorizawa’s matches so I’d know what to expect.” His body is thrumming with anxious energy, filled head to toe with it, and Iwaizumi has half a mind that some of it will overflow if Kageyama isn’t careful. 

He’s nervous. It’s understandable, not unexpected for his first time playing in an official game in high school, and Iwaizumi smiles to reassure him that nothing’s wrong.

“I’m sure you have them down perfectly,” Iwaizumi tells him. “That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.” He’s totally improvising, but as the words leave his mouth, he realizes that they’re true, that there _is_ something he’d like to tell Kageyama before the game begins.

Kageyama nods in understanding — or rather, he jerks his head in what Iwaizumi assumes is a nod of understanding — and leans in closer, as if that’ll make him ready to absorb whatever Iwaizumi plans to say next. Osmosis, or something like that; biology was never his forte.

“Don’t forget to stay calm,” Iwaizumi says. “It’ll be hard, playing against Oikawa after—after everything.” _After all these years,_ he doesn’t say, because then he’d just be addressing his own qualms. “You’ll need to keep a cool head if you want to go up against him, but don’t stress yourself out about it; that’ll just make it worse. We can swap Yahaba back in at any point.”

Yahaba isn’t meant to be a threat to Kageyama’s position in this game, but Iwaizumi doesn’t miss the way Kageyama bristles ever so slightly at the mention of his name. He thinks he understands; it’s Kageyama’s first game as a setter for Aobajousai — third, if practice matches can be counted — and he won’t relinquish it so easily.

If that’s the thought process, though, Kageyama doesn’t show it, just inclines his upper body in a slight bow and says, “I understand, Iwaizumi-san. I’ll try my best.”

“That’s all I had to say,” Iwaizumi tells him, nodding back. “You can go back now; the game’s about to start.”

Kageyama obliges, and while he does, Iwaizumi lets his gaze drift back to the other end of the court. Any impromptu discussions among Shiratorizawa have ceased by now, and when Iwaizumi feels the prickle of a stare from someone in their midst, he really isn’t surprised to meet Oikawa’s eyes.

 

**3 YEARS AGO**

“That movie sucked,” Iwaizumi says the instant the credits start rolling on tonight’s choice film. “This is why we don’t let you choose.”

“What?” Oikawa says incredulously. “You can’t tell me you didn’t like it. You didn’t say anything while we were watching, you must’ve thought it was interesting—”

_Yeah, because you looked like you were enjoying it_ , Iwaizumi thinks. “Yeah, interesting like how a train wreck is interesting,” he says. “It was so bad I couldn’t look away.”

He slides his gaze sideways, to where he catches a glimpse of the expected pout on Oikawa’s mouth. Ordinarily this is the point where he’d start feeling bad, but then he thinks, _I just wasted two hours of my life watching bug-eyed aliens get sliced in half_ and doesn’t feel quite as bad anymore.

“It was good,” Oikawa’s muttering even as he digs around on the couch for the remote control. “Just ‘cause you get squeamish doesn’t meant it isn’t a good movie.”

“I don’t get _squeamish_ ,” Iwaizumi says defensively. “It’s called having taste.” 

By now, Oikawa’s begun grappling with their seat cushions, worming his hand between the gaps of the sofa in search of the lost remote. Iwaizumi scans the floor on instinct and, spotting the object of query lying less than a meter away from his feet, reaches down to get it himself and shut the television off.

“Next time, _I_ choose the movie,” he says. It isn’t strictly necessary to lay claim on these things — they take turns picking, or they try to, at least — but Oikawa, for all his attention to detail, has a funny habit of forgetting just whose turn it is every week. Iwaizumi is pretty sure that today was supposed to be his pick, but Oikawa also has a funny talent for winning arguments, or maybe Iwaizumi is just weak. Either way, he’s regretting it now, lamenting the loss of the past… oh, one hundred and eighteen minutes or so.

Oikawa, having shifted into a horizontally lying position somewhere around the halfway point of _Space Defenders II_ , elects this moment to stretch his legs out. They’re both growing boys, even if Iwaizumi won’t admit that Oikawa’s growing ever so slightly faster than him, and this piece of furniture was not meant to hold more than one set of long limbs. Oikawa’s feet nudge into Iwaizumi’s lap, and Iwaizumi swats them away even as his own feet remain planted firmly on the ground.

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Oikawa says, ignoring Iwaizumi’s shooing hands and sliding down farther so the armrest supports his head like a pillow. “Anything you want, Iwa-chan, even if you have no sense of fun.” Yawning, he wiggles his sock-clad toes in Iwaizumi’s face, smirking when Iwaizumi bats at them in vain.

“Just because it doesn’t have extraterrestrials doesn’t mean it isn’t a good movie,” he retorts, and when Oikawa doesn’t rise to the bait, just stifles another yawn, Iwaizumi says, “Come on, don’t fall asleep right now. You’ll trap me here for the rest of the night.”

“’m not falling asleep,” Oikawa mumbles, peering hazily up at Iwaizumi. “I don’t want to go to bed yet.”

Iwaizumi raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Sure.”

“No, really,” Oikawa insists, opening his eyes fully and shuffling around until he can prop himself up on his elbows. “We have to _talk_ , it’s a requirement for sleepovers.” 

“We’re talking right now.”

Oikawa huffs. “That’s not what I meant.” There’s the briefest of pauses before he goes on and says, “Have you thought about which school you want to go to?”

To say Iwaizumi is unsurprised would be the understatement of the century. They’re nearing the end of their third year at Kitagawa Daiichi; it’s only logical for them to be deciding where they want to go for high school. Oikawa hasn’t brought it up until now, but it’s clear that they’ve both given it thought.

Iwaizumi shrugs, says, “Aobajousai, I guess. You?”

He’s only half-listening for Oikawa’s answer, expects a _me too_ or a _looks like we’ll be going to the same school Iwa-chan you can’t get rid of me that easily_. If most kids from Kitagawa Daiichi move on to Aobajousai for the next step in their educational careers, it doesn’t take a genius to deduce that Oikawa’s likely to follow in those same steps— lucky for them, too, because neither of them is a genius.

It’s also why Iwaizumi doesn’t react immediately when Oikawa, after a marked hesitation, says, “I’ve been scouted by Shiratorizawa.”

Iwaizumi hums in instinctive acknowledgment of the response, and then he freezes, because in all the years that he’s known Oikawa and played on the same court together, he’s never, ever heard those six syllables come from his mouth so neutrally. Nothing about how frustrating the team is, nothing about how frustrating the ace is, no _Ushiwaka_ this or _Ushiwaka_ that. Iwaizumi waits for a moment, expecting a laugh and a _just kidding Iwa-chan! Got you good didn’t I?,_ because there’s no way Oikawa would ever seriously consider Shiratorizawa. Ever.

But Oikawa’s chewing his lip as he watches Iwaizumi’s expression, looking nervous for the first time in a long, long while, and that’s when Iwaizumi begins to realize that this — Oikawa going to Shiratorizawa, Oikawa leaving him for a better team and better ace, Oikawa playing with _Ushi-fucking-jima_ — might actually become a Thing. 

“No way,” Iwaizumi says out loud.

“I’ve been considering it,” Oikawa says, all rushed, the words tumbling out like he's been holding them behind a dam and is just now letting them loose. “It has the best volleyball team in the prefecture. I can’t just waste the opportunity. If we went, we’d finally have a shot at nationals, right? Don’t you want that, too?”

Iwaizumi blinks, slow and uncomprehending. “What do you mean, ‘we’?”

Oikawa stares back at him like he’s dense. Which he might be, because the definition of _we_ is _you and I_ and they’re both very aware of that, but in Iwaizumi’s defense, this entire conversation is something he never expected to have.

“I mean you should apply,” he says.

And Iwaizumi can’t help it. “ _What_?”

“Take the entrance exam,” Oikawa says firmly. “We can go together.”

Iwaizumi’s brow furrows in disbelief. “Go together to Shiratorizawa?” he repeats. “Isn’t there something you’re forgetting here? Some _one_?”

“Listen, Iwa-chan, I’ve been thinking about this for a while,” Oikawa says, like his frantic tone doesn’t already convey that enough. Iwaizumi isn’t oblivious, and years of friendship with Oikawa have fine-tuned him to operate on Oikawa’s wavelength, to pick up on these nuances and moods. “But I’ve been scouted, and you’re smart enough to pass the entrance exam— we can go together, join the volleyball team, take Ushijima’s position away from him. If I’m captain, he has to do what I say, and that’s even better than just beating him, right? And if you’re my ace, we won’t need him at all. It’s the best kind of revenge!”

In the silence that ensues, Oikawa watches Iwaizumi expectantly, and Iwaizumi realizes that it’s his turn to speak.

“I don’t know,” he says dubiously. “It sounds idealistic.”

What he means is that there’s no chance in hell that he’ll become the ace of the team with Ushijima within a five kilometer radius of the picture, but Oikawa seems to have selectively forgotten just how good Ushijima is.

“You can make your final decision later,” he tells Iwaizumi, all round-eyed and earnest. “Just— try the entrance exam, all right? If you don’t get in, that’s fine, but if you do, promise me you’ll think about it.” 

Iwaizumi licks his lips. This is happening too fast, too sudden, and he’s still stuck under the impression that they would both be going to Aobajousai. The impression that Shiratorizawa would remain the enemy, a goal to strive toward and beat, because that’s what they’ve been doing for the past three years and that’s what Iwaizumi had thought they’d be doing for the next three.

“Okay,” he says, “I promise.”

 

The game begins with a blow of the whistle.

Iwaizumi isn’t nervous, he swears he isn’t. It would be ridiculous if he were, because Oikawa’s been a friend for about half his seventeen years despite the time that has passed since the Incident. Maybe they haven’t played a proper game against each other since, well, _ever_ , but still. They’ve played on the same side of the net often enough to have developed an intuitive sense for each other’s styles of play; Oikawa’s thinking process comes as second nature for Iwaizumi, and the only downside is that the reverse is true, too.

It’s a perfect match-up as far as the two of them are concerned, or it would be if not for all the other variables at play. Most obvious are the differing team environments — Aobajousai’s good, but there’s a reason that Shiratorizawa’s found itself a comfortable niche at the top of the rankings — and differing team players, because volleyball is nothing if not a team sport. But that’s not what worries Iwaizumi here, because he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous as fuck.

Distancing himself from Oikawa had seemed like a good idea in the immediate aftermath of the falling-out, the best way not to get irreparably attached to the entire situation, but Iwaizumi is beginning to see that he let the grudge get to him after all. Irihata had offered multiple times to retrieve the recordings of Shiratorizawa’s recent matches for the express purpose of giving the team captain an idea of what they’d be playing against — better to see it firsthand than to rely on a coach to convey all the information necessary for understanding — and Iwaizumi had said no, and really, he’s starting to regret that. It’s almost a given that Oikawa has sacrificed sleep to watch and rewatch all of Aobajousai’s matches from the past three years. A leg up that Iwaizumi let him have out of his own petty insistence to avoid everything ex-best-friend-related after that fight.

He pretends he doesn’t notice the knowing looks that Hanamaki darts between him and Oikawa, pretends he doesn’t notice the half-concerned, half-amused expression that Matsukawa wears regarding both Hanamaki’s idea of subtlety and Iwaizumi’s idea of playing it cool.

He’ll have time to deal with them later, when all is said and done. They probably think this whole thing is just another cosmic joke in the galactically _hilarious_ comedy that is Iwaizumi’s life.

For now, though, they have a game to win.

 

**3 YEARS AGO**

Iwaizumi’s in his room when his mother appears in the doorway, home phone in hand.

“It’s for you,” she tells him with a look that he interprets to mean _it’s Oikawa._

“Thanks,” he says as he accepts the phone, and waits until his mother disappears back down the stairs before lifting the receiver to his ear. “Hello?”

Oikawa’s voice is tinny through the line, but it’s unmistakably him, especially when he says, “Hey, Iwa-chan, have you gotten your letter?”

An ambiguous question, but Iwaizumi knows all too well what he means, and he sinks back onto his mattress at the prospect of having to cover this topic all over again.

“Yeah,” he says. “They came yesterday.”

The _they_ he’s talking about is — or rather, are — the acceptance and rejection letters sent out to the rising high school students all over Japan. Iwaizumi has his in a neat stack on his desk, neatness courtesy of his mother.

“Well?” The anticipation in Oikawa’s voice is palpable, excitement and trepidation and anxiety all at once. “How’d you do?”

Iwaizumi lets out a breath. “You know Shiratorizawa is infamous for its entrance exam,” he says carefully. “It’s as hard as they say. Like, really, really hard.”

Silence on the other end of the line. Then—

“Yeah, but you’re really, really smart, Iwa-chan! Have you even opened it yet?”

Oh, Iwaizumi opened the letter, all right. The envelope has been in the recycling bin since yesterday; he’d torn it open the instant his mother handed the mail to him.

“I have,” he says. “But I told you, it’s hard. The exam.”

Another silence, this one longer.

“Did you not get in?” Oikawa asks at length, and the disappointment in his voice tempts Iwaizumi to answer to the contrary, to tell him that he _did_ , in fact pass the entrance exam, that they _can_ attend the same school next year, just as they’ve done for all the others.

He steels his resolve. He has no interest in being used for Oikawa’s vengeful schemes, no matter how enticing they may sound, no matter how much he wants to keep playing with Oikawa or how much he wants to keep seeing Oikawa in school every day. Iwaizumi isn’t naïve, and he isn’t blinded by any plans to one-up Ushijima; he’s not becoming Shiratorizawa’s ace, would probably have to work twice as hard to even make it into the starting lineup as an ordinary wing spiker.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“It’s all right. Thanks for trying.”

“You still planning to go?”

Oikawa seems to be full of pauses when it comes to his decision to go to Shiratorizawa, and this conversation is no exception. Iwaizumi waits a few beats even though he knows what the answer is, and when Oikawa says, “Yes,” he shuts his eyes and leans back onto his bed.

“I guess that’s that, then.” It sounds final, like a door has closed someplace, somewhere; like now that the decision’s been made, there’s no room for take backs.

“You say that like we’re going to stop being friends,” Oikawa says, affronted. “We can still see each other on weekends. Maybe even weekdays, if you’re free evenings.”

Iwaizumi lets himself smile into the receiver. “I’d like that,” he says. “We could play against each other, too, one on one. See if Shiratorizawa really trains you better than Aobajousai.”

When Oikawa replies, Iwaizumi hears the answering smile in his voice. “You say that like I can’t already kick your ass.”

He snorts. “Tell that to yourself if it makes yourself feel better.”

They remain in comfortable silence for a few seconds before a muffled voice sounds from Oikawa’s end— his mother, calling him down to lunch, from what Iwaizumi can discern.

“Okay, I have to go,” Oikawa says. “Talk to you later, yeah?”

“’course.”

The call ends, and Iwaizumi lies on his bed for another minute or two, replaying the conversation in his head, rewinding it to all the places where he could’ve said something different, all the places where he could’ve caved in to Oikawa’s hopeful tone — Iwaizumi likes to think himself immune to Oikawa’s effect, but really, he’s just better at concealing the impact — all the places where he could’ve told Oikawa the truth.

He sits up then, pulls himself to his feet and crosses the room to where his desk is, the letter from Shiratorizawa at the top of the stack. The edges of the paper curl up in spite of the way Iwaizumi smoothed them down yesterday, running his thumb over the creases again and again even as he ran his eyes over the words “congratulations, Iwaizumi Hajime.” Trying to swallow the dismay. Trying to figure out how to lie to Oikawa without actually lying.

He plucks Shiratorizawa’s acceptance letter from the pile and crumples it into a ball. Then he goes downstairs and throws it away.

 

Winning is easier said than done.

It’s an incontrovertible fact and no one needs to hear it reiterated for the nth time, but then again, no one told Iwaizumi that Oikawa would ever in a million years work this well with Ushijima, so. A little forewarning would have been nice.

“Sorry,” Watari says after Ushijima’s sixth spike hits the paneling of the gymnasium, centimeters away from Watari’s fingers. “I’m still trying to get used to— you know. I think I've almost got it, though.”

“Don't worry about it,” Iwaizumi reassures him, doing his best not to betray his fraying nerves. It's more frustration at the direction the game has taken than it is frustration at Watari or any of the other players, because he _knows_ , all right. Watari doesn’t need to say it for everyone on the team to understand why Ushijima’s spikes are so hard to counteract. That would just be stating the obvious; a name like _the Lefty_ doesn't come from just anywhere.

Two points later, Irihata calls a timeout, and the scoreboard reads 15-12 to Shiratorizawa when Aobajousai convenes for their first break of the match. 

“At the rate they were going, they would’ve just kept on scoring,” he explains. “Hopefully this will slow them down. You’ve only got a few minutes to talk it over, though. Don’t waste it.”

It’s common practice for Aobajousai’s team members to take their strategy into their own hands, especially during matches; Irihata’s logic is that the best observations and suggestions will come from those who have actually played in the game, and there’s merit to it, even if Iwaizumi’s sure that other coaches could argue otherwise. Something about how the perspective of an outsider can be important, even necessary, for a rational and levelheaded assessment of everything.

He’s never sympathized with those coaches more than he’s sympathizing with them right now, because _rational and levelheaded_ is about the opposite of what he’s feeling.

“Hey,” Matsukawa says, prodding him in the side, “you good?”

They’ve arranged themselves in a circle sans Coach Irihata, and when Iwaizumi looks up to find everyone on the team watching him with expectant eyes, he remembers that, right, he’s captain. They’re waiting on him to say something, take charge of the massively fucked situation in which they’ve managed to wind up.

He forces himself to breathe before answering. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just zoned out for a bit there, sorry.”

“What, feeling overwhelmed?” Hanamaki says. “It’s okay, it happens to the best of us.”

His tone is light, teasing, but Iwaizumi has to conceal a wince because the words strike close to home— closer than they were intended to strike, anyway. 

It’s not that Oikawa can work with Ushijima. Oikawa can work with anyone, if he puts his mind to it; that’s why he’s recognized as such a good setter. In a sport where the team is everything, those who can bring out the best in their teammates are invaluable, and Oikawa is the epitome of the _those_ in that rule. Iwaizumi isn’t surprised that he can coexist with Ushijima; contrary to popular opinion, Oikawa’s pettiness does not run so deep that he cannot set it aside for something he considers to be more important.

Really, it’s more that Oikawa can work so _well_ with Ushijima. They’re perfectly synchronized, though the connection between them isn’t quite as instinctive as the one that Iwaizumi himself used to share with Oikawa, but even that latter part might be wishful thinking. The fact of the matter is that Oikawa’s good, and Ushijima’s good, and Oikawa’s good with Ushijima, and it gives Iwaizumi a bad taste in his mouth.

(He tells himself it isn’t jealousy. It isn’t jealousy, it’s just that he thinks of all those years being best friends with Oikawa — putting up with Oikawa, growing up with Oikawa — remembers the first time they picked up a volleyball, the first time Oikawa tried to serve, all the leaps and bounds they’ve taken since those hesitant first steps, everything they did to achieve the level of understanding that they did, and he looks at Ushijima and the past three years — no, not even three years, less than that —

Okay, so Iwaizumi’s a little jealous. It isn’t an illogical emotion to feel; they’d had some _bonding_ moments over their mutual hate of Ushijima, way back in the day, and if Spring High preliminaries have proven anything yet, it’s that Oikawa moved on with relative ease. Which sucks, because it means the roles have been reversed; Iwaizumi’s the one left holding on this time, clinging to the ghost of something that clearly meant more to him than it did to Oikawa. It hurts a bit more than he’d ever admit.)

“Watari, keep working on those saves,” he says slowly, collecting his thoughts before they can spill all over the floor of the gymnasium. “Everyone get used to receiving Ushiwa—Ushijima’s spikes. There’s not much else we can do about that.”

“But there _is_ something we can do about something else,” Hanamaki translates unhelpfully, but he’s picked up on the most important part of that remark, and maybe Iwaizumi’s playing dirty here, _but_. 

He has a team to lead and a game to win — _they_ have a game to win — and strategy is strategy, no matter the type.

“As long as we all agree that the Oikawa-Ushijima combo is the biggest problem at hand here,” he begins — the subsequent nods encourage him to continue, some more fervent than others — “I think we might be able to do a few things about Oikawa.”

Matsukawa lifts his eyebrows. “Are you sure about that?”

“Not really.”

Matsukawa lifts his eyes— lifts them in supplication to the ceiling, the lights, the gods of volleyball or whatever else lives among the rafters. Farther down the circle, Yahaba’s expression is pained; farther yet, Kindaichi’s is nervous, Kunimi’s dubious, Kageyama’s constipated, Kyoutani’s sullen. Worst of them all is Watari, who looks, of all things, to be _hopeful_. 

“Well!” Hanamaki says brightly, clapping his hands together. “You know him better than any of us. What’s the plan?”

“I wouldn’t call it a plan just yet,” Iwaizumi says. “More like a few tips, assuming he hasn’t changed completely.”

He plows on before he can second-guess himself. “He’s good, but it’s important to remember that he isn’t a prodigy. Not like— yeah.” He’s thinking of both Ushijima and Kageyama when he says this, because really, they’re both too impressive for their own good, and he doesn’t miss the way Kageyama shifts at the word _prodigy_ , visibly uncomfortable. “He can be unpredictable, but physically, he’s just the same as us.”

Matsukawa coughs into his fist. “Try telling that to his serve.”

“He wasn’t born with that serve,” Iwaizumi says, and pauses before he can go on because try as he might to remind himself that Oikawa is no longer a friend, it still doesn’t feel right to be revealing these things. It isn’t too late to quite; Iwaizumi could stop now, while he’s ahead. Before he practically sells their former friendship to the team.

But: they’re waiting on him and they’re running out of time.

But: it isn’t like Oikawa makes a huge secret of it, anyway. _To heck with it._

“He overworked himself a lot in middle school,” he says. “Spent a ton of extra time at the gym just practicing those jump serves, perfecting them.” He doesn’t look at Kageyama; Kageyama knows this story already, is part of it, even. “It’s taken its toll. That’s why he has a knee brace. He’ll favor the leg if he happens to land badly.”

The team members are quiet for a good ten seconds as they process this information, and Iwaizumi swallows his guilt. Unable to help himself, he glances across the court at where Shiratorizawa has its own team consultation going on, lets his focus settle naturally on Oikawa. _Natural_ — that’s the best way to describe what they used to have. All instinct and understanding, a bone-deep comprehension of each other inside and out. Never any pretenses. No words needed. 

Maybe some of that instinct is still there. Maybe the connection hasn’t been fully severed.

More likely, it’s just Iwaizumi’s shitty luck that Oikawa chooses this instant to look up.

The gesture is slow, deliberate, like Oikawa’s expecting a staring contest, but Iwaizumi drops it faster than Oikawa dropped their friendship, turns his attention back to his own team.

“One last thing,” he says. “Oikawa’s held some grudges longer than he’s held others.”

This time, Iwaizumi lets himself look to Kageyama, and Kageyama meets him halfway with steel in his expression.

“I’m going to propose a member switch.”

 

**2.7 YEARS AGO**

They try to stay in contact, they really do. And it works at first, it really does. Their meetings are mostly limited to weekends, but they still do their homework at each other’s houses, still watch movies and play video games and sleep over, even practice volleyball from time to time.

Things don’t fall apart until they’re about two months into the first year of high school.

It’s a Saturday morning, and Iwaizumi is still in bed when the doorbell rings. The sound of the bell has him blinking groggily awake, and the immediate instinct is to burrow himself farther into his blankets and cocoon himself completely from any and all outside distractions, until he remembers: today’s an Oikawa Day.

Voices downstairs, words indistinct but tones very distinct; Oikawa, talking with Iwaizumi’s mother. 

“Hajime!” she calls, but Iwaizumi is already sprawled on the floor, having tried to get out of bed with his sheets wrapped around his ankles.

“I just need a few more minutes!” he yells, extricating his feet from the blankets.

There’s no response, and Oikawa doesn’t come immediately bounding up the stairs, which Iwaizumi takes to mean that his mother’s smothering Oikawa with her typical hospitality. The thought makes him move twice as quickly to find acceptable, clean clothes and shrug them on, because it’s only a matter of time before she starts breaking out the embarrassing baby stories. Like Oikawa doesn’t already have more than a fair amount of blackmail material both from the years upon years of their friendship.

It takes Iwaizumi a record total of five minutes to change his clothes, brush his teeth, and wash his face, but it seems that he’s still too late for his image to have evaded any of his mother’s slander, because Oikawa’s wearing a funny expression as Iwaizumi comes thumping down the stairs with his hair a neglected bird’s nest. They’re seated on either side of the kitchen table, Oikawa seated before a half-eaten plate (his second breakfast of the day, probably), Iwaizumi’s mother before an untouched plate (Iwaizumi’s first breakfast of the day, probably).

She gives him a very pointed stare as he comes to the stop at the bottom of the staircase. “Did you brush your hair?” 

“What? Yeah, of course,” Iwaizumi lies even as he runs his fingers through aforementioned hair, trying to sort the tangled strands into something that’s marginally more acceptable.

The Look on his mother’s face tells him that she doesn’t believe him, but she just shakes her head and gets up from the kitchen table, pulling out her chair as invitation for Iwaizumi to take it. “Eat quickly,” she says. “You’ve kept Tooru waiting long enough.”

“Sorry,” Iwaizumi murmurs, partly to her but mostly to Oikawa, and replaces his mother’s spot at the table.

“I’ll be upstairs if you boys need anything,” she tells them both as she disappears up the stairs Iwaizumi came from. “Have fun.”

First, Iwaizumi shovels a forkful of egg into his mouth, because he’s a hungry teenage boy and it’s ten in the morning and he’s just woken up. Then, he explains. “I slept in,” he says, a succinct and rather unnecessary statement.

Oikawa just raises an eyebrow. “I can see that.”

The curtness of his tone gives Iwaizumi pause in the middle of another mouthful of food. He glances up at Oikawa’s face, curious, but Oikawa’s expression betrays nothing but mild irritation. It isn’t like him to be so brusque — between the two of them, Iwaizumi is the one who doesn’t fool around with his words — and the quirk to his mouth speaks more of condescension than it does of humor, but Iwaizumi chalks it down to a bad morning. 

He keeps chalking it down to a bad morning when Oikawa doesn’t chatter through breakfast, when he lets Iwaizumi hold the volleyball as they walk down to the park, when he brushes off Iwaizumi’s multiple attempts at conversation.

He doesn’t let himself admit that something’s wrong until they start up an unofficial match. It can’t really be called a match when there’s only one member per team, but they bend the rules to make it work, and it’s good practice. Fun but tiring, a laid-back way to spend the morning. 

“Ready to eat dirt?” Iwaizumi teases, tone light, but Oikawa doesn’t rise to meet the bait, just shoots him an unamused look from where he’s standing.

There’s no net, only grass and a line of sticks that they establish as the boundary between their respective halves of the makeshift court, and the game begins fast and _brutal_.

They’ve played like this countless times since Oikawa first picked up a volleyball and demanded that Iwaizumi toss it back and forth with him, and they played it over spring break, of course. They’ve also played once or twice since the new school year began, but the difference this time is that Oikawa’s fucking _savage_ — tossing the ball for himself and slamming it into the ground, both on his serves and his spikes, no regard for Iwaizumi’s face even when it nearly catches him across the eye.

Iwaizumi can’t tell if Shiratorizawa’s coach is really that good or if Oikawa’s just been holding back the entire time that they’ve known each other, because it’s hard to believe that anyone can improve so much in so few a number of weeks.

He suggests a break about thirty minutes in, sweat trickling down his neck and breaths coming in short gasps. 

“Tired already?” Oikawa calls, like he’s any better off. Iwaizumi can hear his fatigue, and he says as much.

“Don’t act like you aren’t,” he shoots back, and it must be the morning catching up with him, Oikawa’s strange behavior outside of the game and his unrelenting assaults during it, because the sentence comes out harsher than intended. 

Oikawa doesn’t frown, doesn’t even try to refute it. Instead, his lips curl into a small sneer as he walks over, stepping over the net line and stopping before Iwaizumi. 

“You need the break more than _I_ do,” he points out, which isn’t strictly _un_ true, but Iwaizumi’s eyes narrow nonetheless. It’s the way Oikawa says it, all snide and patronizing, that rubs him the wrong way.

“What’s up with you today?” Iwaizumi demands. “You’ve been in a bad mood all morning.”

“It’s nothing,” Oikawa says, dismissive, and Iwaizumi is insulted because Oikawa _knows_ that Iwaizumi knows him better than that. There’s has to be something, and if Oikawa thinks he can brush this off, then he’s sorely mistaken.

“Is it because I slept in?” Iwaizumi asks. “You know I didn’t mean to. I just stayed up late last night, that’s all—”

He stops when Oikawa looks at him all incredulous, like _do you really think that little of me_ ,and tries a different tactic.

“If it’s something I did, you can tell me. You can tell me even if it doesn’t have anything to do with me.” It’s honestly sad, that they’re regressing back to this, because the very foundation of their friendship has been built upon trust. They’ve told each other everything all their lives, and Iwaizumi just _doesn’t understand_ why Oikawa seems to have forgotten this. “Did something happen at school?”

“School’s fine,” Oikawa says. “Great, in fact. Practice, too. You’re missing out.”

“Am I?”

The curl of Oikawa’s mouth grows until he’s full-on sneering, mouth twisted and ugly, but not quite as ugly as his words when he says, “Haven’t you already figured it out from today’s game? I’m leaving you in the dust.”

Iwaizumi’s reaction is instantaneous; he stiffens, hands curling into balls at his sides. “You don’t mean that.”

“Oh, but I do,” Oikawa insists, wide-eyed with something that’s either insincerity or fervor, perhaps a combination of both. “It’s a shame that you didn’t pass the entrance exam. You’re not improving nearly as quickly as I am.”

“What the fuck?” Iwaizumi says, because he’s too bewildered to manage anything else. In all the arguments they’ve had, all the things they’ve said to each other, all the statements they’ve made and regretted and apologized for, they’ve never gone this far. _Oikawa_ has never gone this far. The worst part is that it’s uncalled for, too, because Iwaizumi’s just trying to figure out what’s wrong here, hasn’t even tried to argue or defend himself with anything that would warrant these kinds of insults. Everything about Oikawa’s attitude has come out of the blue, because Oikawa may know how to use his words and he may know where to prod so it hurts, but he’s never done it without reason and he’s never done it on Iwaizumi.

He takes a moment to gather himself and his thoughts, does his best to stay rational. They’re fifteen, old and mature enough not to lash out so pettily, even if Oikawa isn’t showing that level of maturity right now. “It doesn’t sound like school’s fine,” he says, picking apart Oikawa’s too-shiny words from before, recognizing them for the front they are. “Are you sure it isn’t practice? I bet it’s intense. You can tell me if it’s hard or if anything happened, you _know_ you can—”

And he doesn’t mean to sound condescending, or at least he tells himself he doesn’t mean to, but the way Oikawa stiffens suggests that maybe Iwaizumi isn’t being as levelheaded as he’s trying to be, because nothing ever gets Oikawa quite as angry as the implication that he isn’t good enough for something.

“I can handle it just fine,” Oikawa says. “The only reason it’d be _hard_ is that Coach Washijou already favors Ushiwaka, some shit about how the setter needs to stay in the background so the ace can shine or whatever. If anything, it’s not challenging enough. It’s mindless, almost— everyone expects me to just toss to Ushijima and let him take care of the rest, and it’s annoying, but it’s not hard. I’m still getting better.” _Better than you_ is what he’s leaving out, but he lifts his gaze to meet Iwaizumi’s and the defiance in it is all Iwaizumi needs to get the idea.

“You seem awfully confident,” he observes, and he tries to stay civil, he genuinely tries, but Oikawa’s been insufferable from the moment Iwaizumi sat down at the kitchen table this morning and he’s done playing nice. Fifteen years just isn’t sufficient time for him to have developed the patience of a saint, and so he holds himself back for only a few seconds before adding, “But it sounds like Washijou likes Ushijima better than you. Are you still sure you’re on your way to becoming captain?”

Oikawa’s flinch tell one story and Oikawa’s words tell another, but there’s no question as to which Iwaizumi should believe. “Are you doubting me, Iwa-chan? I’ll make it work,” Oikawa’s saying, but Iwaizumi dismisses it easily; that split-second break in the façade is the only thing he needs to make his judgments.

He’s fifteen and he’s been blessed with the ability to read Oikawa, but he hasn’t been blessed with the patience to put up with whatever this is, and so he doesn’t really worry about the consequences when he decides to remind Oikawa of a little something. “You know better than anyone that we’ve never been able to win against Ushiwaka,” he says. “Not during junior high, not during all those games, not even that last game against Shiratorizawa, when we thought we might actually stand a chance for once. Did you really think that would change just because you decided to join him?”

“I didn’t _join_ him—”

“But you did,” Iwaizumi interrupts, and now that he’s gotten going he couldn’t stop even if he wanted to, he’s that fed up, “and it doesn’t even matter, because it doesn’t change a single thing, Oikawa. We couldn’t defeat him then, and it sure as hell doesn’t look like you can defeat him now.”

Oikawa’s expression closes off, and he draws back. Iwaizumi is too pissed to care. “Maybe that’s the way you see it, but some of us actually have ambition. Some of us aren’t scared to hold back.”

“ _Excuse_ me?”

“I’m saying you have no ambition, _Iwa-chan_ ,” Oikawa says, slow like he’s talking to a four-year-old, mocking in every word. “That’s why you were so easy to beat just now. Didn’t you figure it out?”

“How does my having common sense make me scared to—”

Oikawa cuts him off. “Anyway, I think we’re done here.”

“At the park, you mean?”

“No, I mean we’re _done_. I’m going home. You should, too.”

Iwaizumi stares, disbelieving. “Are you seriously doing this? My mom’s making lunch for both of us. What am I supposed to tell her?”

“Make up an excuse,” Oikawa says, shrugging. “Tell her I went home early because my stomach wasn’t feeling well. You can even tell her you walked me home, if you want.”

“Oikawa—”

“Bye, Iwa-chan.”

That’s how Oikawa ends up leaving the park without coming to Iwaizumi’s house for lunch, and that’s how he stops coming to Iwaizumi’s house altogether.

 

“You know,” Hanamaki says as Goshiki’s spike lands out of bounds, “I actually think that may have been a smart decision.”

Iwaizumi pauses in the middle of the next rotation. “What, switching Yahaba for Kageyama?”

“Yeah. We’re catching up, don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

“No, I know,” Iwaizumi says, because it is, quite frankly, ridiculous for anyone to even suggest that he’s been doing anything but keeping a hawk’s eye on the scoreboard. Not that he ever forgets to pay attention to the numbers — he’s not sure it’s even possible to forget about the thing that tells you whether you’re _winning or losing_ — but now, so soon after pulling that stunt with the setter swap, revealing that card earlier than he’d initially wanted to? He doesn’t need to look to confirm what it reads; 23-22 to Shiratorizawa, a one point difference that they’ll need to close really fucking soon. It’s possible, it totally is, and Iwaizumi isn’t being sarcastic or optimistic when he tells this to himself, because the past ten minutes have been proof of Aobajousai’s ability to catch up. Even if a large part of that catch-up act has to do with the stress that the very sight of Kageyama seems to induce in Oikawa.

“You don’t need to sound so surprised,” Iwaizumi adds after a heartbeat, and Hanamaki raises his hands in innocence.

“Hey, I was the only one who wasn’t doubting you during that timeout earlier,” he says. “Show some appreciation.”

Iwaizumi rolls his eyes. “Nice try. _I_ was doubting me, and I’m the one who decided to do it.” 

Hell, he’s the one who came up with the idea in the first place, all those weeks ago. Back when the Kageyama/Kindaichi/Kunimi problem became less of a problem and more of an asset, when the three of them finally put middle school bad blood behind them and learned to get along a bit better. They’re not nearly as close as they used to be, and Iwaizumi can testify to this because he was there to watch the rise and fall of that friendship, but slowly, slowly. They’re making amends, rebuilding the bridges that were burned that last game at Kitagawa Daiichi; Iwaizumi, official team captain and unofficial team counselor, has heard both sides of the story by now, and it’s more than he can say for his Iwaizumi/Oikawa problem.

(The Oikawa/Kageyama problem remains an unresolved issue, but Iwaizumi’s content to let that one lie for now because they’ve kind of been using it to throw Oikawa off his game for these past few points. Serves missed, moves predicted, sets just off-tempo enough to screw up the ensuing spike— anything they can get is fair game.)

“You know him better than anyone here,” Hanamaki says. “I had faith.”

And — just as Iwaizumi doesn’t have to check the scoreboard to know the score, just as he doesn’t have to say anything for Matsukawa to know which plan they’re using, just as he doesn’t have to look at Oikawa to know that Oikawa’s looking back — he doesn’t have to hear Oikawa’s name to know who Hanamaki’s talking about or what he means. The conversation was about him from the beginning. An annoying habit of Oikawa’s, to keep worming his way into Iwaizumi’s life even after everything, but there’s nothing he can do about it now.

They don’t get to keep talking after that because Kunimi’s stepping up the serve, but in the end, it doesn’t matter; Oikawa gets his shit together, or his team gets their shit together for him, or they just get lucky, because Shiratorizawa wins 26-24 and the first set draws to a close.

 

**2.25 YEARS AGO**

Aobajousai doesn’t make it far in Inter High that year. 

They’re eliminated before ever reaching semifinals, which is both embarrassing and disappointing — the former because it’s Aobajousai and the latter because it’s the first official match of Iwaizumi’s high school career — but the promise of many more to come makes it slightly more bearable.

Oikawa doesn’t come over anymore, and Iwaizumi’s parents eventually catch on to his reluctance regarding anything that has to do with his now ex-best friend. (Even if he doesn’t miss the concerned looks they exchange over his head during dinner, the conversations they have when they think he’s asleep or can’t hear, the name that they forget to stop saying.)

He befriends the other newcomers to the volleyball club, fellow first years Hanamaki Takahiro and Matsukawa Issei, and it’s nice. They’re cool, laid-back and chill and all that, and Iwaizumi is glad to have met them. Sometimes he finds himself thinking it would be better if there were a fourth person to round them out, but he always stops that dangerous train of thought before it inevitably causes some sort of crash elsewhere in his mind. 

Iwaizumi would rather not speculate on what-ifs and what-could-have-beens, not with Oikawa having ended things so definitively that Saturday. Besides, he’s too busy with his own business — schoolwork and practice these days are both intense variations of what he had in middle school, with the exception of Aobajousai’s one day off from practice every week — to hang on to the rapidly receding past, especially when there’s so much to look ahead to. As far as he’s concerned, Oikawa was the instigator that day, and while Iwaizumi is not as opposed to reconciliation as he would like to pretend he is, he also knows Oikawa too well to let himself hope for an apology.

That’s how it is for the first few months of high school, and Iwaizumi’s perfectly content keeping the past discrete from the present— so of course, it doesn’t last.

Hanamaki and Matsukawa learn of Oikawa’s existence the Monday after Inter High, by complete accident.

They’re at his house for an upcoming math test that all the first years have, though Iwaizumi fully expects it to be a tutoring session more so than a studying one thanks to both Hanamaki and Matsukawa’s algebraically challenged brains. They walk to Iwaizumi’s house after practice that afternoon, and it’s pure coincidence that the television’s broadcasting Shiratorizawa’s semifinal match when they take off their shoes and enter the living room.

Iwaizumi has seen those maroon uniforms often enough to place them at a glance, but Matsukawa is the one who points them out.

“Hey, that’s Shiratorizawa, isn’t it?” he says, pausing in front the television. Hanamaki comes up beside him, effectively forcing Iwaizumi to join them, and they all watch the screen for a moment.

Iwaizumi doesn’t search the court for Oikawa. He doesn’t scan those uniforms for a head of perfectly styled brown hair, doesn’t look for a telltale white knee brace among the players.

Except he does, and they’re not there. Not the hair or the knee brace or Oikawa, not any of the three times that Iwaizumi scrutinizes each member on the court. Ushijima’s broad form is unmistakable, but Iwaizumi doesn’t see Oikawa until he finally turns his attention to the sidelines, and that’s when he spots him immediately, notices the knee brace white against the wood of the gymnasium floor. Oikawa’s watching the match with an expression too indistinct to decipher from the distance at which the camera records.

“It’s a rerun,” Iwaizumi says dismissively. “They won this match.”

Matsukawa hums in acknowledgement. “Still interesting to watch, though. Look, they’re swapping someone in— a pinch server?”

Iwaizumi follows Matsukawa’s gaze to where there indeed appears to be a member exchange going on. As they watch, Oikawa walks onto the court and takes the place of a faceless #5. 

“Wonder how good this guy is,” Hanamaki says. “He looks like a first year, too.”

“I know him,” Iwaizumi says without thinking, and immediately regrets it when both Hanamaki and Matsukawa turn to him with a question clear in their eyes. There’s no taking it back, though, and so he clarifies. “His name is Oikawa. Oikawa Tooru. He used to be my best friend.”

“Used to?” Matsukawa echoes. “Did something happen?”

Iwaizumi shrugs, keeping his eyes fixed on the television. Oikawa, now in possession of the ball, is moving back, giving himself room for what Iwaizumi knows will come. “We had a fight,” he says. “I said some things, he said some things, we stopped seeing each other.”

“Oh. That sucks,” Matsukawa says. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. It was kind of stupid, too— I still don’t know why he was so mad.”

Onscreen, Oikawa tosses the volleyball up and takes his running start. Times his jump to coincide perfectly with the highest point of the ball’s parabola, arm raised to strike. He’s in the air for what feels like an eternity in spite of a decided lack of slow motion effect on part of the broadcast, and when he finally does hit the ball, Iwaizumi barely has time to blink before said ball is slamming into the ground on the other side of the court.

“Damn,” says Hanamaki. “Not bad at all. You said you used to be friends with him, Iwaizumi?”

“Best friends,” Iwaizumi confirms, not taking his eyes off the television. The crowd’s cheers are loud, but so are those of the Shiratorizawa players themselves, the one nearest Oikawa slapping him on the back in congratulations. 

“Does he only pinch serve?”

Iwaizumi shakes his head. “He isn’t a pinch server, he’s a setter,” he says. “At least he was last time I talked to him.”

“When was what?” Matsukawa asks, and Iwaizumi has to pause a second to think about it.

“Like... a month ago, I think.” He’s surprised by his own answer even as he says it. There was a time, once, when they’d never go more than a day without seeing each other— when they _couldn’t_ go more than a day without seeing each other. Strange, how quickly things change.

“That’s recent,” Hanamaki remarks. “You didn’t want to go to the same school together?”

“I did,” Iwaizumi says. “Or I thought I did. We were supposed to go to Aobajousai, but then Oikawa got scouted by Shiratorizawa. I guess he has his own agenda now.”

Hanamaki’s tone leaves no room for doubt when he declares, “He’s missing out.”

“Why do you say that?” Iwaizumi asks, bemused.

Matsukawa’s bobbing his head in sage agreement, and he’s the one who answers. “He never got to meet Hanamaki and me, did he? Totally missing out.” 

He says it like that settles the matter, and Iwaizumi supposes that perhaps it does.

 

“I’m sorry,” Kageyama says when they convene before the start of the second set. His head is ducked, his fists clenched, gaze cast to the floor so that Iwaizumi can’t make eye contact. “I should’ve been more careful, I cost us points—”

“Stop beating yourself up over it,” Iwaizumi tells him, intervening before Kageyama can spiral off into a self-pitying tangent on his own incompetence. “Team sport, remember? We’re all in this together. Don’t blame yourself for things you couldn’t help.”

“But you put me in the game because you thought it’d help turn the tide,” Kageyama insists. Iwaizumi opens his mouth, the automatic reaction being to say _but you did_ , except he doesn’t get the chance to because Kageyama just keeps going. “It still wasn’t enough to win us the set, though. I think Yahaba-san should take the next one, he’s more reliable than I am—”

“We were losing by three points before you came in,” Yahaba points out.

“—and he has more experience in actual games, so it’d only make sense,” Kageyama says. “I didn’t even start playing in practice matches until recently.”

Iwaizumi conceals a wince. There’s a reason for that, and he’s not the only one who’s privy to it. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Kindaichi and Kunimi shift in discomfort, Kindaichi tangling and untangling his fingers, Kunimi wrapping his arms around himself almost as if cold but more likely in self-defense. Kageyama’s _recently_ coincides, uncoincidentally, with a number of other recentlys. He didn’t start considering his teammates’ limitations until recently. He didn’t started thinking outside himself on the court until recently. He didn’t start being able to cooperate with Kindaichi and Kunimi until recently. 

He didn’t start playing in practice matches until recently. A natural progression.

“You don’t have to stay in the game if you’re uncomfortable,” Iwaizumi tells him, “but if you’re willing, I think it’d be good. We almost had it last set.”

He turns to Yahaba for support. It makes him feel inconsiderate — he’s basically implying that Kageyama’s doing a better job than Yahaba was — but Kageyama’s the best shot they have at the moment, and if he’s beating himself up over the belief that he’s stealing Yahaba’s position, that he’s not worthy of it, then it’s up to Yahaba to persuade him otherwise.

Yahaba, bless his heart, seems to get it. “You know the important difference between us, Kageyama?” he asks, and barely gives Kageyama to lift his head before answering the question himself. “They haven’t seen you play. They haven’t had the chance to, because like you said, you’ve only just started playing in matches. Last set, you caught them off guard, and it’ll take some time before they adjust to the way you play, because they haven’t had the chance to even watch you before.”

“In middle school,” Kageyama begins, and Iwaizumi interrupts before he can complete the sentiment.

“In middle school, you were a different player,” he says. “Do you see why you’re crucial to this game?”

Kageyama hesitates. Iwaizumi, having exhausted his options, braces himself for disappointment, but ultimately, it’s neither him nor Yahaba who convinces Kageyama to stay.

“You really have changed,” Kunimi says into the silence, and the comment is so unexpected that even Kindaichi starts in surprise. “Since middle school, I mean. Not in a bad way, either.”

It’s as close to a compliment as Kunimi ever gets, and Kindaichi’s nodding in agreement a split-second later, and Iwaizumi would find the whole scene heartwarming if not for the time ticking down to the second set. 

“Are you in?” he asks Kageyama.

And Kageyama says yes. 

 

**1.5 YEARS AGO**

Iwaizumi doesn’t expect Oikawa to apologize — not when he’d been so convinced that he was in the right, even if Iwaizumi would kindly beg to differ — and Oikawa doesn’t.

He moves on; there are better things to spend his focus on, anyway.

Second year starts with the arrival of new first years to the club, but as weeks pass and they get to know their newest members, only two in particular stand out to Iwaizumi.

There’s Kyoutani, who’s far too reckless and gets along with no one, and there’s Yahaba, who veers on the safe side of plays and gets along with everyone but Kyoutani. They get along like a house on fire in the least idiomatic sense possible, and Iwaizumi feels like he’s inside the house every time he shows up to practice, because not a day goes by where they don’t get into some sort of argument. It’s like watching the furniture burn down daily because their hatred for each other seems to be, of all things, renewable.

“Iwaizumi.” It’s Fukuyama, their third year captain. Practice has only just begun and he has his eyes on today’s quarrel across the gym; at this point, he doesn’t need to tell Iwaizumi to do.

“I’ll take care of it,” Iwaizumi tells him. “Just give me a second.”

Matsukawa falls into pace beside him as he makes his way over. “What are you, the team’s official peacemaker?”

“What, are you jealous?”

At that, Matsukawa laughs. “More like the opposite,” he says. “I wouldn’t get between those two even if you paid me.”

“I’d do it for the right amount of money,” Hanamaki muses from Iwaizumi’s other side, joining the conversation uninvited. “I mean, be reasonable here. We’re broke high school students. Would you really say no to some cold, hard cash?”

“You still live in your parents’ house,” Iwaizumi reminds him with a scoff. “You don’t get to say that until you move out.”

Hanamaki raises his hands in a _what can you do_ kind of gesture. “Doesn’t change the fact that I have no money,” he says. They’ve reached the site of the heated argument, and he pats Iwaizumi comfortingly on the shoulder, jerking his chin to Yahaba and Kyoutani. “Have fun with that.”

He and Matsukawa retreat in unison, creepily synchronized partners in crime that they are, leaving Iwaizumi to deal with their first year issue yet again.

“It’s a _team_ , Kyoutani,” Yahaba’s saying as Iwaizumi approaches. “Do you know what a _team_ is? Do you need the dictionary definition? Because you can’t keep acting like you’re the only person playing on your side of the court. It’s selfish.” The two of them are nose to nose, and Yahaba punctuates each sentence with a finger jab to Kyoutani’s chest.

Iwaizumi clears his throat.

“You’re not much of a team player, either,” Kyoutani points out, lips contorted into a snarl. “Picking and choosing who to set to out of your own personal bias—”

“No one in their right mind would ever toss to you!”

Iwaizumi clears his throat again, more loudly this time, and when they don’t immediately step away from each other, he takes it upon himself to physically pull them apart. “That’s enough,” he says. “What’s going on here?”

“It’s nothing, Iwaizumi-san,” Yahaba says, instantly deferential. “Just a difference of opinions.”

“You literally told me you’d rather walk on nails than set to me,” Kyoutani reminds him, and Iwaizumi raises his eyebrows.

“Isn’t that a little harsh?”

Yahaba shoots Kyoutani a scathing glare before turning back to Iwaizumi. “You’ve seen how he is, Iwaizumi-san,” he says. “He doesn’t care about the rest of the team at all. Even when we’re practicing against each other, he forgets that he isn’t the only one on his side—”

“I don’t _forget_ —”

Yahaba raises his voice, speaking over Kyoutani’s protests. “—so when he asked me why I never toss to him when we’re playing on the same side, I told him so. It’s only common sense not to rely on unstable players.”

_Vicious_ , Iwaizumi thinks as Yahaba talks. The scariest part is how easily he flips between two sides of a coin; there’s the side that gets into physical altercations with Kyoutani on a day-to-day basis, and there’s this side, the one that presents opinions to upperclassmen with the utmost respect, even if his level headed tone is at odds with the utter savagery of what he’s saying.

It reminds him of another two-sided coin he knows, or used to know, but he dismisses that notion before it gets distracting. More important is the issue at hand.

“How do you expect Kyoutani to improve if you won’t let him play?” Iwaizumi asks, genuinely curious. Yahaba flinches, and Kyoutani’s perpetual scowl shifts into something a little more smug. Iwaizumi isn’t finished just yet, though, and before either of them gets it in them to say something else, he continues, directing this latter part at Kyoutani, “Yahaba has a point, though. Not about outright refusing you the right to play, but, like. Volleyball _is_ a team sport.”

Yahaba’s consternation visibly eases, and Kyoutani averts his gaze. He doesn’t lash out, though, so Iwaizumi adds, “Both of you need to get your acts together. Come on, we’re about to start drills.”

He’s turning to leave, expecting them to follow him back to the other members of the team, when Yahaba speaks up.

“Can I request not to be placed with him during intra-team matches?”

Iwaizumi automatically looks to Kyoutani for the predicted outburst, but for once, Kyoutani’s silence is more agreement than stubbornness.

“That’s not my place to decide,” he says after a pause. “You can bring it to Coach Irihata if you’re that opposed to working with Kyoutani. But then that’d just make you a hypocrite, wouldn’t it?”

Yahaba casts his eyes down from Iwaizumi and away from Kyoutani, the mirror image of Kyoutani, who still seems to be fascinated by something next to his shoes. It’s the first time Iwaizumi’s seen them agree on something, even if the agreement is that they shouldn’t have to practice together, which is a little sad.

It’s going to be a long year.

 

In the end, they don’t get to see the full extent of what Iwaizumi’s come to dub the Kageyama Effect— not on Oikawa, anyway, because Oikawa gets himself swapped out in the first half of the second set.

It happens like this: the score is tied, 9-9; both teams are struggling to establish a lead, for reasons that are ostensibly different but ultimately the same. One needs to win the set in order to win the game, the other needs to win the set so that the first _can’t_ win the game. Not yet, at least.

(Ambiguous terms. Later, this is how Iwaizumi will remember this particular Spring High, all the better to distance himself from the past. It’s an Oikawa thing to do, putting that space there, detaching himself just enough to feign impartiality; but then again, it’s Oikawa who will plant the suggestion in the first place, after all’s said and done and Iwaizumi still has trouble stopping himself from feeling so much.)

Only two players are important here, though. There’s a setter and there’s an ace, and though their respective counterparts are standing braced just on the other side of the net — though they, too, are technically players, as is everyone else standing on the court — they are not the _key_ players in what happens next.

The score is tied, 9-9, and the thing about games is that they tend toward _direction_. Flow, continuity, rhythm; a pace that’s hard to break once it really gets going, the kind that a timeout might forcibly try to hinder. It isn’t too late for either team just yet, but neither is it too early, and honestly, it’s never too early to try and get the game running in the direction that you want it to run in.

The setter knows this, the ace knows this, everyone on the court knows this. They are all players, but again: in the events that happen next, only those two are important.

Someone saves the ball. That’s not the interesting part, no; in a sport like this, it’s about the team more than the individuals, and it’s about the ball more than the team. Case in point: someone saves the ball, but they do it funny, and it isn’t a big deal because in moments like these, the ball matters more than the team matters than the individual, and all anyone’s truly focused on is putting themselves between the ball and floor before said ball can touch said floor. If the ball does not make it back over the net, then someone else will try and work off of what they’ve been given.

The setter knows, the ace knows this, everyone on the court knows this.

The score is tied, 9-9, and the setter is there far before the ball can touch the floor. He’s there to intercept it even as it threatens to go flying into the sidelines, and when he sends it back across the court to the only player who can break past any wall, he’s working off of what he’s been given.

But let’s not drag this on. Later, Oikawa will tell Iwaizumi to _stop dragging these things on, just stop overthinking, Iwa-chan, who do you think you are, me? Let’s put it behind us._

And so, in the end, the ace takes that cross-court set and works off of what he’s given, takes the ball and slams it into that wide-open patch of ground on the other side of the net, because no one expected _that_.

In the end, the setter knocks over a row of chairs scrambling to get back up. (He fell sometime after making contact with the ball, but in a sport like this, the ball is all that matters, and most people don’t realize until they see him getting back up. The reason Coach Washijou does not belong to the majority here is that he just so happens to be in the business of keeping an eye on his players.)

In the end, Oikawa gets himself swapped out for a second year with bangs in his eyes and a sign in his hand, the #1 calling Shiratorizawa’s captain off the court because _really_. Washijou doesn’t approve of setters who shine too much, and it’s a wonder that he ever allowed Oikawa into an official match, let alone allowed him to become captain. 

Anyway. That’s how Iwaizumi thinks it’ll end, with Shirabu on the court and Oikawa off it, and he’s okay with that. Perfectly peachy, in fact; Oikawa’s distracting for more reasons than one, and Iwaizumi’s less willing to admit to some reasons than he is to others. Oikawa off the court is better for him than is Oikawa on it. 

So of course, that’s not how it ends. It’s nothing like how it ends, and nothing turns out that simple. Of course. Of fucking _course._

 

**0.5 YEARS AGO**

Dealing with Yahaba and Kyoutani is preparation for a lot of things come third year and captaincy, but all the quarrels in the world couldn’t prepare Iwaizumi for _this_.

The first day of practice sees Kindaichi approaching Iwaizumi as they wrap up and flat-out telling him that cooperating with Kageyama won’t be a thing as long as either of them is on the team. Same for Kunimi, Kindaichi adds, even if Kunimi won’t say it out loud.

For a moment, it’s all Iwaizumi can to do blink at him, volleyballs forgotten in his arms. Is there proper protocol for handling first years with grudges? Of the many duties he’d have anticipated of being captain, this is not one of them.

“Why not?” is what he settles on saying, after a beat.

“All due respect, Iwaizumi-san, he isn’t a good team player,” Kindaichi says. “Or a team player at all, really.”

Iwaizumi eyes him bemusedly. Kindaichi’s a nice kid— looks like a nice kid, at least, judging from what Iwaizumi met in middle school and what he saw during practice today. He’s hard-working, sincere, not nearly as much of an enigma as Kunimi; he wears his heart upon his sleeve, says what he means without tricks or games. Which is probably why he’s taken it upon himself to break the news to Iwaizumi.

It’s a thoughtful thing to do, kind of. Iwaizumi appreciates the candor, and Kindaichi’s being perfectly respectful about it, if somewhat tense with his balled fists and ramrod-straight back. It’s just that—

“Why do you say that?” Iwaizumi asks. “Have you given him a chance?”

“He had his chance in middle school,” says Kindaichi. “Multiple chances. He’s a selfish player, doesn’t think of anyone but himself; Kumimi and I figured that out firsthand. We want as little to do with him as possible.”

Iwaizumi tries and fails to keep the disbelief out of his voice. “There’s no way you can completely _avoid_ one of your own teammates.”

Kindaichi looks appropriately contrite, but that doesn’t stop him from continuing. “I just don’t think we’ll get along,” he says. “Especially not after that last game.”

Iwaizumi doesn’t pry into what he means when he says _last game_ , but he doesn’t think he needs to; he gets the idea of what’s going on here, can relate to it just a bit too much for comfort. They’d been friends when he knew them in middle school, a near-inseparable trio from what Iwaizumi could tell — Kageyama, Kindaichi, and Kunimi, three distinct positions covered among them — but that seems to be over now, and he can’t say he doesn’t understand how it feels.

The mature, adult-like thing to do would be to tell Kindaichi — no, not just Kindaichi, all of them — to forgive and forget and move on for the sake of the team. But that would make him a hypocrite, and if there’s anything Iwaizumi hates more than being a liar, it’s being a hypocrite. Never mind that the team is irrelevant when you go to different schools; the fact is that he has no right to be telling people what to do with their relationships when he can’t even manage his own.

So he doesn’t lecture, but he does say this: “You should at least try. He won’t learn to change unless he gets to practice.”

Kindaichi opens his mouth to protest, then appears to think better and close it. Iwaizumi’s grateful for the cooperation; the first day of captaincy, and he’s already feeling stressed. “We can try,” he says. “Or at least I can. I don’t know how it’ll work out, but if it’ll help the team.”

Iwaizumi moves on instinct to clap him on the shoulder in comradely spirit, only to remember at the last second that his arms are still full of stray volleyballs. “That’s the spirit,” he says, keeping his limbs to himself and moving to dump his load into the designated cart. In the time that it took for that conversation to start and end, the gym emptied out, leaving just the two of them to stand beneath the harsh lighting that lines the ceiling. “The team comes first. Before anything personal.”

Kindaichi nods; Iwaizumi can’t tell if he’s eagerly agreeing or just eager to agree, but he takes it as a sign that he has not yet proven himself completely unfit for the role of captain. “The team comes first,” he echoes. “Right. Of course.”

 

Shirabu doesn’t take risks of his own.

Aobajousai learns this with each spike that Ushijima sends relentlessly to the ground, every set that Shirabu sends to Shiratorizawa’s ace. The problem is that _each spike_ is most spikes, and _every set_ is most sets.

Irihata calls a timeout.

“Needed to break the flow of the game” is the unnecessary explanation he proffers when they gather around the bench, sweaty and fatigued. It’s a chore to stop an Ushijima Spike, and while Oikawa made a point of _not_ setting to Ushijima any more frequently than he does to the other wing spikers, Shirabu possesses no such reservations.

“Does the kid even realize there are other players?” Hanamaki sighs as he wipes at his face. It’s futile; all he succeeds in doing is smearing sweat around, which is, quite frankly, as disgusting as it sounds. “Honestly.”

“It’s getting pretty tedious,” Iwaizumi concedes. “You can kind of see why he’s doing it, though.”

Silence is a lack of dissent, and a lack of dissent means that everyone — even Kyoutani, who tends to disagree for the sake of disagreeing, even Yahaba, who isn’t playing in the game right now — can indeed see why Shirabu’s doing it. Relying so blindly on Ushijima.

There’s a reason that Shiratorizawa’s performed so well these past few years, even under Coach Washijou’s close-minded insistence that the ace makes or breaks the game, and it’s that Ushijima is, to put it in the simplest terms possible, a game-making ace. The best not just among the prefecture but among the nation, and Iwaizumi wouldn’t be surprised if _among the world_ was included in the description, if not now then later, give or take a few more years of training.

“Maybe he’ll get tired,” Watari says hopefully, after they’ve all had sufficient time to think about what they’re up against. “He’s human, too.”

“Are you sure about that?” says Matsukawa, dry.

“What, the tired part or the human part?”

Matsukawa considers for a moment, then shrugs. “Both.”

“Well,” Watari begins in what appears to be earnest candor, but Iwaizumi stops him with a Look before they can get anymore off track.

“Okay, we’re going back in soon,” he says. “Don’t give up yet; it’s only the halfway point.”

He doesn’t mention the three-point difference that they need to close, but he doesn’t need to; the expressions of the faces around him are solemn as they nod in understanding, connected by the silent but mutual need to take this set once and for all.

 

**1 DAY AGO**

Their second game of Spring High this year, they find themselves facing off against Karasuno High.

“Interesting,” Matsukawa offers during their first timeout of the game. The timeout was called by Karasuno — they’re the ones who need it more, the ones who are currently losing, though the goal is to take that _currently_ and make it permanent — but that doesn’t mean they can’t take advantage of it.

“Interesting,” Hanamaki agrees. And even though he and Matsukawa are living extensions of each other on the best of days and practically telepathic on the worst of them, no one needs to ask what they mean this time because everyone on the team gets exactly why Karasuno is so _interesting_.

“That little wing spiker,” Iwaizumi begins, and stops himself there because what is there to say? Hinata is a piece of work, and that’s putting it lightly.

Kageyama speaks up then, surprising them all. Lately, he’s been piping up a bit more often, especially now that they’ve started putting him in actual matches against other teams; it’s a wonder, how far a little self-confidence can go. Iwaizumi’s glad that their first year problem has finally been resolved.

“He’s fast,” he says, shrugging, “but he isn’t very good.”

Matsukawa hums. “True that. It just catches you off guard first time you see him jump, you know? Really _jump_.”

“He’s the only one who really sticks out,” Iwaizumi says dismissively. “The rest of them are pretty standard. Except, like, the libero.”

Hanamaki sighs dramatically. “That libero gets on my nerves.”

Silently, Iwaizumi agrees. There’s nothing quite as annoying as a libero who can take just about any ball you send their way, and Nishinoya’s been doing that in spades. A prodigy, he is, quick steps and quicker hands, reflexes that have him wedging his fingers in the ball-to-floor gap with centimeters to spare. Iwaizumi would go as far as to say it’s _annoying as fuck_ if current circumstances allowed for crude language, but as it is, they don’t, so he keeps it to himself.

Out loud, he says, “It’s nothing we can’t handle. Right, Kyoutani?”

Kyoutani grunts, which is basically a yes; Iwaizumi takes it to be a yes, anyway, and continues.

“There isn’t much we can do to stop him from making those saves — or even to stop any of them from receiving the ball, period — but their offense isn’t anything outstanding. The small one’s the most unstable of them all.”

The timeout ends there, but Iwaizumi didn’t have much more to say, anyway. And as it turns out, he didn’t _need_ to say much more, because Karasuno — in spite of its genius libero, in spite of its steady captain and steady setter and steady ace, in spite of the little wing spiker who can make himself fly — just doesn’t have what it takes to beat an established powerhouse.

 

Either Ushijima is human or Washijou indeed has some common sense, because he switches Shirabu out toward the middle of the set.

He switches Shirabu out and Oikawa in, and it could be as straightforward as that, but Iwaizumi recognizes it for what it is: a concession, a confession, because Ushijima cannot carry a game on his back and Shirabu seems too willing to test that limit.

Generally, Oikawa does a better job of using his resources. He knows his teammates almost better than they know themselves, sends the ball to his spikers the way they like it, takes on the role of conductor with the ease of someone who was born to wield the baton. 

Generally, he’s a smart player. He knows himself, knows his limits; Iwaizumi can attest to that, because Oikawa’s never been one to delude himself about what he can and can’t do when it comes to technique. About what he can and can’t handle when it comes to the physical limitations of his own body— that is a different story, and the implied exception connotated by the word _generally_ only proves that even Oikawa, as smart a player as he is, has not been completely realistic with himself these past years.

It hurts to remember, but it happens like this: there’s a boy, a setter, among the best in his generation, and not without good reason. He loves his sport with every fiber of his being, so much so that he would risk the health of aforementioned being in order to push and push and push himself to improve, and the sad thing is that it won’t ever be enough. 

Because the boy is not a genius. He is among the best, but being among something is a far cry from _being_ that thing, and as hard as he works, there will always be someone on his heels who is smarter or faster or stronger. He is among the best, but he cannot be the best, because everywhere he goes there is someone who is better or will be better or is destined to be better: the little underclassman setter hailed to be a prodigy, the notorious spiker on track to play for the country.

He works and works and works and it just so happens to catch up with him as he steps up to serve during what will turn out to be the last match of his volleyball career.

It hurts to remember, but it happens like this: in one moment, he readies himself to soar. In another moment, he does soar. And in the final moment— well, in the final moment, no one really knows what happens because it happens too fast to see, but he takes a wrong step or puts the wrong kind of weight on the wrong knee the wrong way, or maybe it’s just that he lands too hard. 

It doesn’t matter in the end, though, because he’s on the ground before anyone can say a word. The volleyball hits the floor second after he does, but by then, for a change, no one’s watching it.

 

They bring a stretcher for Oikawa, carry him out of the gym— _they_ being a collective adult-group that Iwaizumi barely registers, Irihata among them, medical staff members who work either at the gym or the hospital, Iwaizumi doesn’t know.

The game goes on. It has to, even though Shiratorizawa’s members have to be shaken by the abrupt loss of their captain and starting setter. This time, when a new setter steps in, it’s different. Not only because it isn’t Shirabu but also because Oikawa isn’t on the sidelines, can’t be accessed through side glances or timeouts or anything, is just _gone_. Insufferable, indomitable Oikawa with his sure smile and surer hands, natural-born leader of the top team in Miyagi Prefecture, able to take the reins of a team that had spent so long following Washijou’s set philosophy of making the ace shine brightest. 

Iwaizumi still can’t fathom how he did it, but he’s discomfited, disoriented, and he wasn’t — no, _isn’t_ , he reminds himself, Oikawa isn’t dead — even on the same team as Oikawa. Perhaps he doesn’t have the right to feel like his world is tilting on his axis, not when it’ll help Aobajousai’s chances at victory, but it isn’t every day that you watch your invincible childhood friend collapse useless to the ground. It isn’t every day that you live the nightmare you thought you’d outgrown years ago, isn’t every day that you see your oldest fears come back to haunt you.

This time, when a new setter steps in, it’s different. He’s a third year, taller than Shirabu, with a questionable dye job and eyebrows that either suggest intensity or just happen to be conveniently thick. _Semi_ is the name Iwaizumi’s mind supplies. Used to be some hotshot setter back in middle school, Irihata had explained earlier that month, when he’d explained Shiratorizawa’s members to everybody. Relegated to the backburner thanks to Oikawa’s ingenuity and Shirabu’s lack of it; rarely put into matches despite his strong pinch serving ability, because of Oikawa’s stronger pinch serving ability.

In the lull between the fall and the replacement, Irihata speaks to the team. “Remember what I told you about the new setter,” he says. “Just because he plays less often than the other two doesn’t mean you can let your guard down.”

Letting his guard down is the last thing Iwaizumi plans to do, but that doesn’t stop Semi from taking Shiratorizawa’s lead and running with it.

Adjusting to the individual playing styles of three different setters in the course of a single game — not even that, it hasn’t even been two sets — is hard enough, but Iwaizumi’s distracted for more reasons than one, and it doesn’t help that the captain’s mood tends to be contagious. Semi’s a formidable opponent in his own right, not quite as calculating as Oikawa and not nearly as Ushijima-dependent as Shirabu but rather more about brute force and straight-up skill. Iwaizumi would appreciate the opportunity to play against him if he weren’t already preoccupied by the memory of Oikawa’s fall, playing over and over in his head like a record stuck on repeat.

Step. Oikawa, tossing the ball up, all easy movements and practiced grace.

Brace. Oikawa, running, body held tight and low to the ground.

Jump. Oikawa, rising and then not.

Kageyama’s set is perfect as ever, but Iwaizumi’s palm meets the ball off-center and it goes careening out of bounds. He lands with a grimace. That’s another point for Shiratorizawa.

“Sorry, Iwaizumi-san,” Kageyama says, “that was a bad set.”

Iwaizumi shakes his head. “Don’t be. It was my fault.”

 

A spoiler: they lose the second set, and like that, it’s over.

 

The last tear is shed, the last bow made, the last team meal eaten. There’s a sense of finality that’s been creeping up on him ever since third year began, but today, Iwaizumi goes through the motions without feeling any of it. 

“Hey,” Hanamaki says through a mouthful of steak. When Iwaizumi doesn’t respond, he nudges him in the foot and leans forward, across the table. “Hey, Iwaizumi.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you want the rest of your steak?”

Iwaizumi looks down at his mostly-untouched food. “You can have it,” he says, picking up the piece of meat in question and depositing it into Hanamaki’s waiting plate.

“Thanks, man.”

“You’re _exploiting_ him,” Matsukawa says to Hanamaki. “Not cool.”

“Listen, just because _you_ didn’t think of asking him for it—”

“What do you mean, he’s exploiting me?” 

Matsukawa shakes his head sadly, _poor thing, doesn’t know he’s being used for his food_ , and says, “See, you didn’t even realize. Clearly, Hanamaki’s taking advantage of your condition.”

“What condition?”

“You’ve been thinking about that friend of yours,” says Matsukawa. 

“How did you—?”

“No offense,” Hanamaki says, helping himself to another mouthful of Iwaizumi’s steak, “but it’s kind of obvious. You’ve got that distant look in your eye, the one you get whenever you’re thinking about him.”

Iwaizumi practically recoils. If they’re implying what he thinks they’re implying, and he thinks they’re implying that he thinks about Oikawa, which he totally doesn’t, he moved on ages ago, swear to god— 

“I don’t get a _look_ ,” he mutters.

“But you were thinking about him, weren’t you?” Matsukawa says.

Iwaizumi shrugs, trying to act dismissive. He’s used to being teased about this, has been dealing with it ever since he made the mistake of telling them about the Incident, but that doesn’t mean he’s grown any more inclined to indulge them on it. And okay, maybe he’s ranted to them once or twice or five times over the past few years, but who can blame him? It hurts to lose a friend, even more to lose a best friend.

“He got hurt,” he says. “It’s only natural for me to be worried.”

“You should go visit him,” Hanamaki suggests, and Iwaizumi promptly chokes on air.

Someone claps him on the back, hard. Then they do it again, and again, and—

“Iwaizumi-san! Are you okay? Are you choking? Did I get it out?” Kindaichi’s talking between each _blow_ that he delivers, frantic and concerned; Iwaizumi can see that head of pointy hair floating in the periphery of his vision.

“I’m fine,” he manages to wheeze after a good ten seconds of this. “Please stop hitting me.”

“Oh! Sorry.” Kindaichi stops instantly, and the contrite expression on his face makes Iwaizumi feel almost apologetic. Almost.

He chooses to direct his glare across the table, where Hanamaki’s hanging onto Matsukawa’s shoulder for support as he laughs his ass off. “Stop that,” he hisses. Hanamaki keeps laughing, so Iwaizumi delivers a sound kick to what he gauges to be Hanamki’s shin, and Matsukawa doubles over in pain.

“Wrong person,” he groans, face screwed up in exaggerated pain. Somehow, Iwaizumi can’t bring himself to apologize.

“Are you crazy?” he says to Hanamaki. “I can’t just waltz into his hospital room. We haven’t spoken in years. He won’t even want to see me.”

“But you want to see him, don’t you?” Hanamaki says, and it’s all Iwaizumi can do to scowl because he’d be lying if he said no.

“Besides, you don’t know for sure that he doesn’t want to see you,” Matsukawa adds. “I watched him earlier today— he seemed pretty interested in seeing you _then_.”

“You’re kidding me.”

Matsukawa has the audacity to look offended. “Am not.”

“You have literally got to be kidding me,” Iwaizumi says. “He _hates_ me, I’ve been telling you for the past three years—”

“Matsukawa’s right,” says Hanamaki. “I watched him watch you for the longest time while you weren’t looking.”

“Of course I’m right. Look, Iwaizumi, do you trust us?”

Iwaizumi doesn’t hesitate to reply. “Hell no.”

Hanamaki clutches at his heart. “I’m wounded,” he says, voice catching unconvincingly. “Friends for three years, and he still doesn’t trust us. Why do we even bother?”

“Honestly,” Matsukawa sighs. “It’s entirely one-sided.”

“Say what you want, but I’m not visiting,” Iwaizumi says decisively. “And nothing’s going to change my mind.”

 

“I saw what happened in the game today,” Iwaizumi’s mother tells him when he gets home that afternoon.

“Yeah?”

“Mhm. We were watching the broadcast when it happened, your father and I.” She stops him before he can retreat to his bedroom upstairs. “Have you heard anything? About his condition?”

“No,” says Iwaizumi. “We don’t talk anymore, remember?”

He hears her soft exhale. “I remember,” she says, and guilt flares in Iwaizumi’s stomach, hot and heavy and ashamed. He’d sounded more curt than he’d meant to just now, but it runs deeper than that. Just as Iwaizumi had been friends with Oikawa, so too had his parents had been friends with Oikawa’s friends. Just as Iwaizumi had stopped talking with Oikawa, so too had the interactions between his parents and Oikawa’s parents dwindled, slowing to a trickle of a conversation here and there until they finally stopped as well. He’s responsible for more than the end of his own friendship.

_I’m sorry,_ he thinks, but it’s too little, too late; the time for apologies has long passed.

“Yeah,” he says. “I wouldn’t know anything.”

He’s about to head up when his mother’s voice stops him again. “I talked to Tooru’s parents just now. Before you got home.” Iwaizumi pauses, surprised, and she continues. “They’d like you to visit.”

“I don’t think that’s—”

“You used to be so close, the two of you. Don’t you want to talk to him, Hajime?”

“Yeah, but does _he_ want to talk to _me_?”

The look she gives him is at once knowing and pitying. “You were his best friend. You should know the answer.”

 

Iwaizumi’s mother drives him to the hospital and tells him to call her when he’s done. Then she drives away, effectively leaving him to the wolves— _wolves_ , in this case, being Oikawa and the past three years, and everything that lies between them.

He gets himself inside the building, and then he gets himself admitted to visit Oikawa, and then he gets about five steps away from the door to hospital room and chickens out.

_It’s just Oikawa,_ he tries to tell himself. Oikawa, his best friend of eight years. They’ve seen the best and worst of each other, have gone through some of the most important periods of their lives together. Oikawa’s held Iwaizumi’s hand in the dark when he was scared, even if he’d pretend to be anything but; Iwaizumi’s let Oikawa’s tears and snot stain his shirt so many times that _whipped_ is the only way to describe it. They know everything about each other; secrets were never a thing, not with them.

But that was before the Incident. 

Now, Iwaizumi takes a breath to steady himself before he enters, and when he does, it is with his expression carefully guarded and his mouth even more so. There are _things_ he’s bottled up for years on end, things that’ll spill out if he’s not careful, and considering his luck, they’ll do so at precisely the wrong time.

“Hey,” he says, hands shoved in his pockets as he lingers awkwardly in the doorway. His gaze wanders over the room, over the white walls and sparse furniture, the flowers and cards piled high on a small table, a miniature television mounted in the corner— wanders over everything except the bed and the occupant in it, because he doesn’t think he’s ready to jump over that particular hurdle just yet. Not when it still feels like a wall.

“Iwa-chan.” Oikawa’s voice is tired and unsurprised; likely his own parents warned him about this reunion, if it can be called that.

Iwaizumi tears his gaze away from the fascinatingly blank expanse of the ceiling and lets himself look at Oikawa, properly look at him, for the first time in a long while. 

This close up, he can see the details he missed when they were standing on opposite ends of the court, the changes he missed when they grew up separate from each other these past few years. Oikawa’s sitting propped up on his pillows, ordinarily styled hair a tousled mess that haloes his face, and Iwaizumi allows himself a moment to indulge in the familiarity of the sight— the arch of his eyebrows and the slope of his nose the same as he remembers, the line of his jaw that much sharper, the curve of his lips that much more noticeable. That, or they’ve always been this way and it’s just Iwaizumi who’s starting to notice these things.

Oikawa’s eyes are large and brown and staring right back at him, the darkness of his eyelashes a fluttering shadow that brushes against his cheeks every time he blinks slow and languid, and Iwaizumi realizes with a start that he’s been silent for a heartbeat too long.

“Hi,” he says a split-second before remembering that _hi_ and _hey_ mean the exact same thing, and silently hopes that the ground opens up and just fucking swallows him whole, sends him to his burning death at the center of the Earth, _honestly_.

“You can sit.” Oikawa gestures to the chair at his bedside and Iwaizumi takes it, feeling self-conscious as he lowers himself onto the seat with Oikawa’s eyes drilling two holes in the side of his head as he does so.

“Thanks,” he says. “It’s been a while, huh?”

Oikawa’s mouth twists into a wry grin. Iwaizumi doesn’t watch it. “You could say that. How’ve you been?”

This is small talk, and they both know it, and they both hate it, and they both know that they hate it. It was never their style, not when they always had better things to talk about, but Iwaizumi’s coming up blank on what they could say to each other; now, after so long, small talk will just have to work.

“Good,” he says. “How’re you feeling?”

Oikawa lifts one shoulder in a half-shrug. “I’ve been better. Came out of surgery not too long ago.”

“Is it—?” Iwaizumi can’t bring himself to finish the question, but Oikawa seems to understand what he means, and it shouldn’t be as painful as it is, this reminder of how well they _get_ each other.

“ACL tear. I can still walk, and I might be able to play after a year or so, but I’ll probably never go pro,” he says. It’s too casual, too airy, and that’s how Iwaizumi knows he’s seeing a façade.

He releases a gust of air. “Shit, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to be. It wasn’t your fault.”

Iwaizumi hesitates, and Oikawa elaborates. “It’s been a long time coming; it would’ve happened sooner or later. Just sucks that it happened during a game. Kind of embarrassing, too.”

“No one’s judging you,” Iwaizumi tells him. “If anything, you’ve become more popular.”

“I know,” Oikawa says, glancing at the heap of gifts already overflowing the table. The arrogance gets on Iwaizumi’s nerves, just as it always has, but he wills his irritation away; at the very least, Oikawa is being forthright. 

“Shiratorizawa won the game, too. In case nobody told you.”

“No, yeah, I heard,” Oikawa says. “I’m glad. Means I didn’t fuck up my knee for nothing.”

“What happened?”

“I landed badly. But my knee was bad to begin with— too much practice, I guess.”

Iwaizumi had expeted something like this. He swallows the bitter taste in his throat. “I always told you to give yourself more breaks.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Oikawa says, and at Iwaizumi’s skeptical scoff, he honest to god _pouts_. “Hear me out, Iwa-chan— I had to be better than Ushiwaka if I wanted to stand a chance at becoming a starter, let alone become captain.”

“Let me guess,” Iwaizumi says flatly: “you stayed behind after school every day to practice, and you practiced too much without letting yourself rest and screwed yourself over.”

Oikawa winces. “Well, it sounds worse when you put it like that.”

It takes everything Iwaizumi has for him not to throw his hands up in exasperation right then and there. Even now, after everything that’s happened, Oikawa’s as stubborn as ever, and this — a cold, white hospital room — is where it landed him. Iwaizumi doesn’t voice it, though; best not to push at boundaries when he still feels like he’s treading on thin ice just talking to Oikawa.

“You seemed pretty buddy-buddy with him back there,” he says instead. “With Ushijima, I mean.”

The amusement in Oikawa’s smile makes Iwaizumi regret everything immediately. “You noticed?” he practically cooes. “Aw, Iwa-chan, I didn’t know you still cared!”

Iwaizumi bites back his first instinct ( _I don’t_ , a lie if he ever saw one but the knee-jerk reaction to being mocked by Oikawa) and says, as levelly as he can, “Don’t flatter yourself. You weren’t being subtle about it or anything; anyone with two eyes could’ve seen it.”

“And here you had me getting my hopes up,” Oikawa sighs, and Iwaizumi tells himself that the disappointment he hears is all in his head. “We’re not friends, if that’s what you’re worried about. I don’t hate him, but yeah. We’re not friends. You don’t have to be jealous.”

Iwaizumi splutters. “I’m not _jealous_.”

Oikawa hums. “Sure you aren’t. It’s all right to admit it to yourself, you know.”

“I don’t _have_ anything to admit to myself,” Iwaizumi begins indignantly, but Oikawa cuts across him, smooth as butter.

“You don’t have to get embarrassed about it, Iwa-chan,” he says consolingly. “If it helps, I saw you getting ‘buddy-buddy’ with Tobio-chan. Retaliation, right?”

 _Hanamaki,_ Iwaizumi thinks furiously. “We were just talking,” he says. “Are you sure you’re not the jealous one here?”

Oikawa pouts, then leans back on his pillows with a sigh that seems to take the fight out of his body, bringing his arms up to clasp his fingers behind his head. “Touché,” he says, the picture of casual repose, and Iwaizumi blinks because that is not the response he’d expected.

“Excuse me?”

“Do you really need me to say it twice?” Oikawa says. “I saw you looking over, you know. So I decided to talk to Ushiwaka, just to spite you a bit. Petty of me, but you got back with Tobio-chan, so we’re even.” 

_That’s not what that was about,_ Iwaizumi wants to say. _It wasn’t about getting even._ But he can’t, not without lying, and it’s the most frustrating thing. _What have we become?_

He doesn’t realize that he’s said the last part aloud until Oikawa’s eyeing him curiously, an otherwise inscrutable expression falling over his features. 

“Rivals,” he suggests. “Opposing players.” A pause, and then, more quiet, “My parents want us to be friends again.”

“Do _you_ want to be friends again?”

And it comes out harsher than Iwaizumi means it to, it always does, because Oikawa bristles, the tension re-entering him, and shoots back, “I don’t know, do _you_?”

Iwaizumi gapes, dumbfounded. “Why are you asking me? You’re the one who ended it.”

“Incredible,” Oikawa says, shaking his head. “Fucking incredible. You’re blaming me.”

“Because—because you’re the one who started the argument that day!” Iwaizumi bursts out, three years of confusion and hurt and anger in the making. “And you know what? I still have no clue what I did to piss you off so much. No fucking clue, Oikawa. You didn’t give me an explanation, you just upped and left.”

Oikawa’s staring at him in blatant outrage, not bothering to mask it for once, and Iwaizumi might feel gratified _(finally, something genuine)_ if not for his own outrage, which he thinks is more justified than Oikawa’s.

Up until Oikawa says, “Then tell me why you lied.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Tell me why you lied to me.”

“You—I—what have I ever lied about? I’m not like that,” Iwaizumi says. “You know I’m not like that.”

Oikawa’s flat look tells him otherwise. “Yeah,” he says, “and _I_ happen to know you got into Shiratorizawa.”

Iwaizumi’s stomach drops. It falls into the fucking floor, it drops that far, because now he remembers. The day Oikawa came over while Iwaizumi was still getting ready, Iwaizumi’s mother keeping him company as Iwaizumi got dressed. Oikawa’s right, he’s a hypocrite, he lied, but—

“How did you learn about that? I didn’t… I didn’t…”

_I didn’t tell you._

“Your mom thought it might be something I’d like to know,” Oikawa says, voice cutting. “Which is more than I can say for you. I can’t believe—” His voice breaks and he stops to collect himself before continuing. “You didn’t have to lie about that. If you’d wanted to stop being friends, you should’ve just told me.”

“You thought I didn’t want to be friends anymore?”

“You lied to me about getting accepted,” Oikawa deadpans. “I got the hint, Iwa-chan.”

“But that’s not what I _meant_ ,” says Iwaizumi. “I never wanted to stop being friends. Ever.”

“Then why did you lie?”

“You wanted me to play for Shiratorizawa with you,” Iwaizumi says, and it feels like he’s lifting a weight off his chest, finally talking to the person who placed it there. “You wanted to be their setter, and you wanted me to be your ace, but you realize that never would have happened with Ushijima around right?”

Oikawa’s shoulders slump. The movement is barely perceptible, but Iwaizumi’s ability to read Oikawa’s body language has not dulled with time, and he notices. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I get that now.”

And in spite of everything that’s transpired, everything that they’ve said and done, everything they _haven’t_ said and haven’t done, Iwaizumi feels himself soften. “I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

“You wouldn’t have. Being there would’ve been enough,” Oikawa says. “But thanks.”

Iwaizumi bites his lip. “I’m sorry for lying,” he says. “I should’ve told you.”

“It’s all right.” Oikawa smiles, and this time it’s a little more real. “As long as you don’t do it again.”

“Is this your way of saying you forgive me?”

“If that’s what you want it to be, then yeah.”

Iwaizumi lets himself relax in his chair for the first time since entering the room. Tilting his head, he studies Oikawa silently, commits him to memory even though he has no intention of letting him go again, before finally speaking up again. “I forgive you too, by the way. In case you were curious.”

Oikawa laughs, and Iwaizumi doesn’t think it’s beautiful. (He does.) “Thanks. I should’ve… I should’ve given you a chance to explain yourself.”

“Yeah,” Iwaizumi says, “you should’ve.” A pause, and then he asks, because he’s been wondering, “How did you get Washijou to come around, anyway? To make you a starter.”

Oikawa looks at him incredulously. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m me. How could he not?”

At Iwaizumi’s unamused expression, he sobers. “It didn’t happen until second year, and he liked Shirabu more, at first. Still does, I think. He just can’t deny that I’m better. But after Kasaya graduated, there were three of us my second year — me, Semi, and Shirabu — and he chose Shirabu initially. Semi and I just pinch served. Things didn’t change until Inter High finals. It was the fifth set, a close match, and he started to crack under the pressure, I guess. So Washijou sent me in.”

“And you helped them win?”

“By three points.”

Iwaizumi raises his eyebrows, impressed. “Not bad.”

“Not bad?” Oikawa repeats indignantly. “It made him change his mind about us. About Semi and me, I mean. Setters who, you know, actually have a mind of their own.”

“Don’t be rude,” says Iwaizumi, and Oikawa flashed him a white smile.

“It’s just the truth. Shirabu’ll get his time in the limelight now that I’m gone.”

Oikawa’s still smiling, still too cheerful for someone whose dreams have just come crumbling down around their ears, but Iwaizumi can’t bring himself to mirror the mask. “What are you going to do now? If you can’t play.” 

He tries to avoid saying it out loud, like avoiding the words will mean that they don’t have to be true, but Oikawa does it for him. “You mean now that my knee’s officially fucked? Start thinking about a new career, I guess.”

“Do you know where you want to go?”

“I used to think it’d be Nittaidai,” Oikawa says, “or another school with a reputation for sports. Now that I can’t go pro, though, I’ve been thinking about Todai.”

“Seriously?” says Iwaizumi. “Me too.”

“What, Todai?”

“Yeah. Do you have any idea what you want to study?”

“Astrophysics,” Oikawa says, and the answer comes readily enough for Iwaizumi to figure that Oikawa’s been thinking about this for longer than he lets on. Maybe he realized a while ago that his knee wouldn’t recover, that he never stood a chance at going pro with that kind of injury holding him back.

Iwaizumi allows himself to crack a smile despite it all. Things aren’t all okay, not yet, and it’s possible that they won’t be for a while to come, but they’re getting better. _They’re_ getting better, too— him and Oikawa.

“Are you finally letting go of Ushijima?” he asks, and he’s joking, mostly, but Oikawa fixes him with an utterly offended look.

“You make it sound like I was obsessed with him,” he complains, and before Iwaizumi can say, _yeah well you kind of were_ , he says, “Don’t you get it, Iwa-chan? Me going to Shiratorizawa, joining their team— you were always the one I imagined playing with, winning nationals with, even if it didn’t happen in the end. It was always you.”

Iwaizumi wrinkles his nose. “Ugh. I can’t believe you became a sap,” he says, and pretends his heart isn’t beating a little faster than usual.

 

It starts like this: Two old friends catch up for the first time in years in a hospital room. They haven’t always been there for each other, and it’s possible that they won’t always be there for each other, but Iwaizumi takes Oikawa’s hand in something that feels an awful lot like a promise, and Oikawa lets him.


End file.
